Hmmm... another bunch of corporate favoritism from the courts.. shocking.. the problem is that the internet would not exist at all without all of the public funds that went into building it.

The internet has its origins in DARPA which was a network used by the US military, university researchers and military contractors. The bulk of the funding came from the US government. DARPA then morphed into ARPANET which was broader based (as in not military focused). TCP/IP the technology backbones of the internet were developed on the public dime. The NSF (another US govt funded entity) was also deeply involved in the evolution of the internet. Until 1995, the NSF funded the network backbone for the US internet.

So given that all taxpayers paid for the originaly technologies and infrastructure, why should corporations be allowed to suck us dry for what we already helped to create? Or at a minimum, why aren't they paying royalities to the US govt?

Lets also not forget the $200 billion scam in the late 90s where the feds (via the Telecommunications Act of 1996) allowed ISPs to raise rates and collect tax credits to build up fiber-optic infrastructure. But it never happened. Now they say its just too costly, and/or not feasible. But did we get a discount or a refund?

Couldn't f***ing believe it. It's like if AAA started telling you that you only get service on state or federal highways, and you only get one roadside assistance per month, despite your full membership.

I think it's important to remember that the court is upholding the law and not attacking net-neutrality. I'm interested to read what they had to say about it prior to asserting otherwise. As the author of the article points out there are still options for the FCC. The reclassification of broadband providers from light to heavily regulated is their most likely next move. A move that is a thousand times worse for networks like Comcast than the current situation.

Comcast is in trouble with consumer cable television service too. This is only my opinion but the market has some other pretty viable options. I live in a very media intensive household and they just dumped their cable in lieu of streaming Netflix on their PS3. In my opinion this is part of the reason we see Comcast getting grabby at all. They want to grab a bunch of bandwidth to service that kind of product and probably need to manage their networks in order for that to happen.

Hmm. Too bad. 'Cause that makes them toll-keepers, potentially, and the ability to go to THIS congress and stop them from doing it, is an appealing idea.

I don't see this as a negative; I'm more aligned with the Vance interpretation. I've been using computers for 40 years - I remember the days of toggle switches and actual debugging, and the early days of 128k telephone transmission, to say nothing of the first browser, built at University of Illinois. The web, as we use it today, was a construct of some bright people over at CERN, and while the initial infrastructural backbones were first laid out by DARPA, they were quickly split into a triad: defense, engineering (universities), and financial.

Indeed, one of the first national networks to arise, the text-based GEIS system, was developed because after the banking industries closed for the day, they had so much system time going to waste. Thus, GEIS was developed as an after-hours commercial network, allowing private individuals to dialup for a small fee.

I actually worked on that one for a number of years, and subsequently, an additional network that became known as CompuServe, which similarly started as text-only after-hours. In both cases, I was trying to adapt modem strings to achieve faster actual connections. The apparently trivial pursuit resulted in dropping right past the usual guest interface and into the main systems. In the course of wandering about in there, I downloaded some of their programming materials and sent them to their respective system managers, along with a brief description of what had transpired.

As a result, I was given access to both networks for a number of years, which allowed me to follow the development of the sorts of interfaces to which we are all now accustomed.

It is a mistake to believe that the Internet as we know it today was funded on the taxpayer dime. It's rather akin to claiming that, as microwave technology was developed at NASA, your oven should be free.

If you follow through to the LA Times article Jack links, you'll see that the FCC has an ace in the hole. It can put broadband providers in a more heavily regulated class of providers. That has always been a good idea, but it becomes the only reasonable idea after this court decision. Indeed write the FCC and Congress, asking them to act swiftly to reclassify broadband providers to the more heavily regulated class to protect net neutrality.

I've had Youtube videos as well as Skype choked by Comcast, which is now claiming simultaneously to have upped all our speeds. Oh, sure.

Absurd comparison Max. Nobody is saying it should be free. I already pay for IP. What is in contention is the regulation of traffic according to some proclamation which fits the political viewpoint of the guy with the bucks. Like those who control too much media access.

BTW, microwave was not developed by NASA. It is a byproduct of radar technology which had it's origins before NASA, in at least WWII. X Band was a secret during WWII and is in the microwave region.

While I understand where Vance and others come from, I think it's a mistake to sit on our hands and wait. Luck favors the prepared.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 155
At this date last year: 241
Total run in 2015: 271
In 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269